Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

Abstract

Supporting Assimilation views of Neandertal/modern human interaction, chronostratigraphic reasoning indicates that the "transitional" industries of Europe predate modern human immigration, in agreement with their association with Neandertals in the Châtelperronian at the Grotte du Renne and St.-Césaire. Supporting the Neandertals' species separateness and less developed cognition, those industries are alternatively claimed to relate to pioneer groups of modern humans; the latter would have been the true makers of the precocious instances of symbolic material culture that, under Assimilation, are assigned to the Neandertals. However, the taxonomy of the Kent's Cavern and Grotta del Cavallo dental remains is uncertain, and their poor stratigraphic context precludes dating by association. The opposite happens at the Grotte du Renne, whose stratigraphic integrity is corroborated by both taphonomy and dating. Not questioning that the Early Ahmarian is a cultural proxy for modern humans and a source for the Protoaurignacian of Europe, its claimed emergence ~46-49 ka ago at Kebara refl ects the dating of Middle Paleolithic charcoal-to be expected, because the Early Ahmarian units at the back of the cave are made up of reworked Middle Paleolithic sediments derived from the entrance. The dating of inherited material also explains the old results for the Aurignacian of Willendorf II and Geissenklösterle. At the latter, the dates on anthropically modifi ed samples of the hunted taxa (reindeer and horse) place its Aurignacian occupations in the same time range as elsewhere in Europe, after ~40 ka ago. The hypothesis that Neandertal/modern human contact in Europe resulted in a process of assimilation in connection with the spread of the Protoaurignacian ~41.5 ka ago remains unfalsifi ed.

On the Entity and Antiquity of the Aurignacian at Willendorf (Austria): Implications for Modern Human Emergence in Europe

“…Following Nigst and Haesaerts (Nigst and Haesaerts 2012, Table 2), AH3 would contain two sidescrapers and 12 Blaterally retouched blanks.^Among the latter, several could also correspond, based on the illustrations supplied, to sidescraper fragments. As previously pointed out (Zilhão 2013), sidescrapers are a rare occurrence in Early Aurignacian assemblages. However, the percentage they represent in AH3 would be, if the classifications are valid, at least ten times higher than in the Early Aurignacian of e.g., Geissenklösterle, in Germany, or the Abri Pataud, in France.…”

“…Before resigning ourselves to the implication that we must begin again from scratch, it is therefore prudent to examine the soundness of the claim's empirical basis. The more so since, in the case of the comparable arguments put forth for another central European site, the Geissenklösterle (Higham et al 2012(Higham et al , 2014, it has already been shown that the available dating results in no way imply assigning to its Early Aurignacian occupations an age beyond Bnormal^ (Zilhão 2013;Discamps et al 2015).…”

“…However, neither the Bohunician nor the other so-called transitional industries from the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic in eastern and central Europe have so far been found in association with human remains, while several directly dated diagnostic fossils place Neandertals from Croatia, Germany, France, and Belgium within the corresponding 45-50 ka time slot. Claims for modern humans being present at that time elsewhere in Europe, for instance at Kent's Cavern and Cavallo, are no less dubious, due to ambiguity in morphological features or poor stratigraphic context (White and Pettitt 2012;Zilhão 2013;Zilhão et al 2015;contra Benazzi et al 2011;Higham et al 2011).…”

A rock engraving made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar

“…Radiocarbon dating has provided a large time span for level IV, ranging from 38.5 to 30.5 cal kyr BP, controversially interpreted as possible evidence of a late Neanderthal survival in southern Iberia (26,29,37). Such controversy does not appear to have significant implications for the dating of the engraving, which logically must be older than the oldest-and for this reason, probably also more reliable-14 C determination from level IV (38.5 cal kyr BP), obtained from a sample collected at the very bottom of this level.…”

“…Other factors contributing to the difficulty in testing the foregoing hypotheses include persistent uncertainties in the chronology of archaeological sites at the so called Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe (23)(24)(25) and in the taxonomic affiliation of their inhabitants during this period (26)(27)(28).…”